Barth emphasized on the threefold form of God’s Word: Revealed, Written, and Proclaimed. The Written Word (Bible) bore witness to the revelation. The Word proclaimed today bears witness to the future revelation. The revelation is Jesus Christ. Barth’s emphasis is more on encounter and the event when God’s Word grasps a man (through an act of divine grace), what he calls the Bible becoming God’s Word. He emphasizes the personal nature of the Word over the propositional one. In his Vol.1 part 1 of the Church Dogmatics he writes:
“The Bible is God’s Word to the extent that God causes it to be His Word, to the extent that He speaks through it..”
“The Bible is the concrete means by which the Church recollects God’s past revelation, is called to expectation of His future revelation, and is thus summoned and guided to proclamation and empowered for it.”
“The Bible, then, is not in itself and as such God’s past revelation, just as Church proclamation is not in itself and as such the expected future revelation. The Bible, speaking to us and heard by us as God’s Word, bears witness to past revelation. Proclamation, speaking to us and heard by us as God’s Word, promises future revelation. The Bible is God’s Word as it really bears witness to revelation, and proclamation is God’s Word as it really promises revelation. The promise in proclamation, however, rests on the attestation in the Bible.” (p.111)
Barth is being more subjectivist in line with Kierkegaardian thought and focused on the Grace of God in the Reformed sense. However, his undermining of the propositional nature of the Word also undermines the fact that the presence of the Written Word in the world along with its proclamation not only is witness to the grace of God but also is witness to the judgment of God for it condemns the world of the sin of unbelief and destroys every excuse for rejection of the knowledge of God. Since the Word exists, people have no excuse left for unbelief.
Hebrews 1:1,2 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.
Hebrews 3:7-8 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…
John 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Revelation 2:7 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
1Peter 4:11 “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.“
1 John 5: 6 This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. 7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
1 Peter 1: 10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into.
Luke 16: 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”
John 5:39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
Acts 5:32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
See Also
Domenic Marbaniang 